The information booth of the Education Division at the Taipei Representative Office in Germany

The University of Bonn, founded in 1818, is one of the largest universities in Germany with approximately 38,000 students, many of whom take an opportunity to go abroad as part of their studies. The university has three partner universities in Taiwan: National Chengchi University, National Taiwan University, and Tamkang University, and Taiwan is already a popular destination for those students who wish to spend a short or long period studying in East Asia.
The University of Bonn holds an annual studies and internships abroad fair at which the university’s international office. Its language center and other institutions present details of their programs which offer international academic and practical training experiences. The Education Division at the Taipei Representative Office in Germany also participates, providing information about Taiwan’s higher education, ways that the university’s students can study, learn Chinese, or do an internship in Taiwan, and details of the government support programs available, including scholarships and short-term research awards.

The 2022 fair was held on May 18 in the assembly hall and inner courtyard of the university’s historic main building. In contrast to the fair held in 2021, which was fully digital because of the continuing COVID19 pandemic, this year’s fair was a hybrid event. There were booths where students could interact in person with staff of the participating institutions and ask questions, and students could also visit the online profiles of each participating institution.

Students are feeling excited about being able to go abroad again and engage in exchange activities, many of which were postponed or cancelled because of the COVID19 pandemic. Many conversations with individual students that day showed the staff from Education Division at the Taiwan booth that there’s a continuously increasing awareness of and interest in Taiwan as a study destination for short-term study and research visits, internships, and degree programs, and for learning Chinese.